What Are We Now?
by DrKCooper
Summary: Post-ep for the penultimate episode "Who Are We Now?" (02x09). What Sandra's blowup at Jill means for she and Kate.


_Disclaimer: All recognizable _For the People_ characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to ABC and Shondaland. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fan fiction story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended._

Author's note: Post-ep for "Who Are We Now?" (02x09) following montage of all the characters grappling with the events of the episodes, particularly Sandra's blowup at Jill. This is me grieving for this show that's stolen my heart. And this is me trying to process the irony of Sandra causing her own 'ship to sink because she leaned into Jill's. –dkc

**What Are We Now?**

Kate was on her way to the elevator when her phone began ringing in her office. She backtracked, but then stopped when the ringing stopped. Turning again toward the elevator, Kate Littlejohn resumed a conversation in her head. She was pulled from it once again when her cell rang. Pulling it from her bag, she opened the cover and saw Sandra's name on the screen.

"Don't go anywhere!" was said to her before she had the chance to say 'hello' or any other greeting.

"I'm on my way to you," Kate said.

"Jill told you?" Sandra asked. "I mean Roger."

Kate remained still as she tried to make sense of their conversation.

"About the settlement?" Kate was genuinely confused.

"Yes, about the settlement. Though it wouldn't have surprised me if Jill told you, too. Everyone seems to be playing for both sides around here. It's not even switch-hitting, it's more like being traded mid-game from the Yankees to the Mets and then they change their mind and trade you back by morning."

"Sandra, you know I don't follow sport."

By now Kate was exasperated and sat on a bench near the elevator. She didn't want to lose Sandra should she step into the elevator and the signal cut out.

"It's…well…never mind. Did you say you were on your way to my office?" Sandra's mind finally slowed down long enough to recognize what Kate had said.

"I was, though I've stopped forward progress so I could focus on why you were calling."

"Oh," in the middle of the quadrangle between her office and the court, Sandra plopped down on a bench. "I was on my way to you."

Kate considered what Sandra might possibly need. If Roger and Jill had worked out a settlement, there was nothing left for Kate and Sandra to do. Kate was less than pleased with the settlement as she didn't feel she had violated the Brady Act, at least not the letter of law, even if she had violated the spirit of it. She regretted nothing. She thought she had the case won. To have a win taken from her made her very angry. Unlike Sandra, she had been on this case for months. She was invested.

"Should I go back to my desk?" Kate sighed. She hadn't realized how tired she was.

"No, that isn't necessary," Sandra's answer wasn't clear and it left a taste of disappointment in Kate's mouth.

"Should I come to yours?" she asked one more way.

The AUSA heard her friend sigh on the other side and it made her wonder what was going on. This case had been taxing, both professionally and personally. There was silence on the line for a few beats too many.

"Sandra?" Kate's concern had surfaced.

"Can I meet you at your apartment?" Sandra quietly, defeatedly asked.

They had been meeting for lunch in the park every work day since they'd concluded the Doug Bradshaw case at the hotel. Many conversations had been had over the phone at every hour day or night. They were texting, something Kate Littlejohn expressly stated she did not do. Yet aside from the parties Allison and Sandra hosted at theirs, the two women had never met at each other's homes.

The quiet had convinced Sandra that this was a terrible idea and she was about to take it back when she heard a firm, unflappable answer in the affirmative. She should have known better than to think she could rattle Kate.

"Twenty minutes?" Sandra asked.

"Twenty minutes."

And that was that.

…

Sandra knocked on the door, a bundle of energy and fury.

"Hello," Kate had barely opened the door when Sandra stormed in without further invitation. "Please come in."

Dropping her bag on a chair and briefly taking in the lawyer's apartment, the public defender flopped down on the couch and let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Is this about the case?" Kate asked.

"Yes. No. I don't know!"

This called for tea. Kate moved to the kitchen and poured two cups of hot water from the electric kettle, inserted two tea bags and left them steeping on the counter. When she returned to Sandra, she decided to sit. Unlike Sandra, she gingerly settled. She left a cushion width between them on the couch.

"This is wrong. This isn't fair. Jill is—" Sandra groaned.

"I'm not following. What about Jill? She talked to Roger. We move on."

"No, we don't. This is wrong. She is wrong. She and Roger are _involved_. They shouldn't be deciding cases, deciding people's lives. They cannot possibly be fair," the brunette was furious.

"You keep saying this is wrong. Roger and Jill?"

Kate kept watching her friend to determine where this was all going and if there was any hope of her settling down.

"Yes! No!—"

"You don't know?" Kate cut her off.

"Roger and Jill sleeping together, Jay and Seth living together, Leonard and Allison and the beautiful, beautiful babies they would make, _you _and _I_," she finally got to the heart of the matter.

"Leonard and Allison aren't…" Kate's eyes were wide.

"No, but can you imagine that jawline with her height and hair?" Sandra smiled for the first time. Kate joined her in that thought.

"What about you and I?" the prosecutor questioned.

"Babies? I'm not sure that would quite work."

"No, you and I meditating in the park," she clarified. She didn't read the way Sandra deadpanned her comment for the sarcasm it was. "We don't have to meditate. Clearly neither of us is any good at it."

The rapid-fire way they were having this conversation wasn't serving to settle Sandra down any. It was serving to make Kate edgy. She stood to fetch the tea. She needed tea. Once they both had their tea in hand, she felt this conversation might have a chance of progressing.

"We are not a happy family. Our offices are incestuous. Jill and Roger, Seth and Jay, you and I. It isn't fair to our clients. We are good people. We have to be above this. We have to be able to represent our clients without relationships getting in the way," Sandra collapsed into the couch in defeat.

"We can to be more than our jobs, Sandra," Kate's voice was low. There was emotion. "We have to be."

This was a new sentiment Kate had only recently come around to. She often forgot in the courtroom that she, too, was a human being. Spending time with Sandra and watching her in the courtroom had taught her this.

"We fought. In that courtroom, Kate. We fought."

Looking at the small woman in the overstuffed couch, Kate realized how small she was and how fragile she could be.

"That's what we do. We fight. We are lawyers. We enter the arena and we battle for justice," she wanted to reach out and touch Sandra, but she was afraid this would only make the situation worse.

"No, you aren't understanding me. _We_ fought, Kate. You and I. Sandra and Kate, not Ms. Bell and Ms. Littlejohn.

"I am not your enemy, Sandra. In that courtroom or outside it. We did our jobs," Kate abandoned her tea and fell back into the couch mirroring the brunette.

"Did we? A Brady violation? That isn't you. You follow the rules. Have I… our lunches, our late nights in the park… Kate, what are we doing?" she felt the emotion rising in her throat and the tears building in her eyes.

"I made a mistake. I wanted to win. I had to win. You were on the attack and I responded accordingly," Kate turned her body to face Sandra. "I made a mistake."

Taking a deep breath to get her emotions and tears under control, the lawyer took in what Kate was saying and wanted badly to forgive her. She could never hate the prosecutor or the woman beneath that title.

"What I said in my closing was wrong. You can trust people. _I_ can trust people. I've never had any reason not to trust you, Kate," as she said the other woman's name her voice cracked and she felt the first of many tears fall down her cheeks. What she didn't say was that the way Kate had tried her case gave Sandra a reason, for the very first time, to not trust her.

Kate never knew what to do when other people openly displayed their emotions. She was awkward in the most neutral circumstances.

"Come here," she exhaled, moving her body toward Sandra and opening her arms.

Sandra cried. She let out every last bit of anger and frustration that had been building through the trial, as she ranted at Jill, while she sat in her office and thought about Kate, and during the cab ride to Kate's.

"I was unfair and I'm sorry," Kate whispered against the top of her friend's head.

"You didn't answer my question," Sandra sniffed.

"Which?"

"The time we have spent together—did it affect you when you decided to withhold that discovery until just before court? Has our time together made you less a stickler for the rules?" pulling back from Kate's arms, she needed to look into those wide eyes.

Kate took a deep breath and thought about the question. Yes, in the past she wouldn't have involved herself with someone from work. Was Sandra what broke that self-imposed rule? No, she had slept with Anya whom she met at work. But Sandra was different. They were opposing counsel. However, it was more than that. Kate needed to admit that Sandra was more than that.

"No," Kate composed herself underneath that piercing stare. "My propensity to follow the rules is still there. But I've also started to allow myself to me someone other than Ms. Littlejohn, prosecutor for the U.S. attorney's office. I had to win this case. I had to prove to myself and to you that I could win this case. You came waltzing in at the eleventh hour. How could I lose? I had to prove to myself that I hadn't lost my edge by choosing to also be Kate. I had to prove to you that I could be both."

"You have nothing to prove to me, Kate. Ever. Are you hearing me?" Sandra placed a finger under Kate's chin to tilt her head so their eyes would meet. "I know you can be both people. I know who you are. I like who you are."

"When I follow the rules or when I don't?" Kate queried.

"You worry me when you don't follow the rules. You worry me when you lose your cool in the courtroom," Sandra hadn't dropped her hand, but the tone of her voice and volume dropped. "You objected to _me_, Kate."

Kate rolled her eyes and tried to shake off Sandra's hand and eye contact. She was rebuffed when that hand framed her face and held her there.

"I'm sorry," Kate whispered.

If Sandra hadn't burst in here like an emotional tornado, she wouldn't have believed what she saw before her. Kate Littlejohn had tears in her eyes.

"I forgive you, Kate," the brunette insisted. "I will always forgive you."

"I don't deserve that. Not after this case."

"You do," another hand also framed Kate's face. "You deserve everything."

Green eyes were hidden by shuttered eyelids.

"Kate…" Sandra whispered hesitantly. "I need to say something and this may be the worst time or the best time. I have no idea anymore."

Eyes snapped open and Kate's face was suddenly serious and insistent.

"I'm falling for you," Kate exclaimed.

"Oh!" the smaller woman was taken aback.

"I know this is problematic given what you said about Jill and Roger. I know that professionally I—"

Kate was cut off my lips firmly pressed against her own. Breathless from the sudden turn of events, she stiffened before relaxing into the kiss. Her lips joined the motion causing Sandra to hum against her. Sandra was contemplating what an amazing kisser her friend was when hands came behind, grasping her hips and not-so-subtly directing the smaller woman into her lap. When the lawyer opened the door that evening, she never thought things would go here. Sandra was straddling her and their kiss was heated, controlled chaos and quickly leading to other motions that were as satisfying if not a bit fast.

"Kate…" Sandra spoke against enflamed lips.

"I know," Kate panted. "I know."

"It's not that I don't want to, I do—"

"But it's too soon—"

"Too fast—"

They were speaking the same language, finishing each other's thoughts. The kissing slowed and both women controlled their hips despite how turned on they had immediately become when lips came together for the first time.

"God, you are an amazing kisser," Sandra finally parted and was moving to extract herself from Kate.

"Wait."

Kate held her there, wrapping her arms around the brunette and pulling her into a tight embrace.

"A minute is all," Kate hadn't asked as much as demanded.

"Yes."

Sandra lowered her head to Kate's shoulder, nestling her nose beneath the blonde's ear. She could feel Kate's still wild pulse and listened to the tempo of her breathing.

"What are we now?" Kate's question matched what Sandra had been thinking long before she blew up at Jill. What the two women had become had never been discussed. Their friendship had developed rather surprisingly and neither knew how to navigate the path forward.

"I don't know, Kate," her breath tickled an earlobe. "Can we effectively do our jobs and do this?"

Sandra's heart was in her throat; she was afraid that now they had taken this step they would have to take several steps back.

"I can," Kate didn't hesitate. "As long as we are open about whether we cannot try certain cases as opposing counsel. We can be professional in the courtroom. I promise to never object to you again."

Sandra felt the muscles of Kate's face pulling into a smile.

"If you'd like, you can object to me outside the courtroom," Sandra smiled, too.

"That won't be necessary."

Sandra's stomach growled and Kate chuckled.

"When was the last time you ate?" the prosecutor asked.

"Sort of breakfast?"

"Does 'sort of' mean something out of a vending machine?" Kate knew Sandra well.

"A Pop Tart."

Giving a gentle shove, Kate encouraged Sandra to stand up.

"Wait," Sandra stopped.

Before Kate could ask what was wrong, soft lips pressed to hers. In this kiss was the answer to every question the two women had about the future of their relationship. It was not driven by anger or adrenaline. It was a slow exploration of the feelings they had discovered over many weeks and hoped to carry into their future.

"I don't suppose you have any pretzels…"

Sandra always had a way of making Kate laugh.

-_finis_-


End file.
